BONDED

by S. D. Harrison

  “Where are they?” I brush by her into the main room. Marcella is hovering over T.K., dabbing at his face with a bag of ice. He looks awful, all swollen in blacks and blues. It looks like he was in a fight, but not recently.

  “Raye, what are you doing here?” T.K. stands suddenly, shaking off the ice pack. He moves toward me and places his hands on my shoulders before shooting an accusatory glance at Chane, as though my presence is entirely her fault.

  “I want answers, and I’m not leaving without them.” I shove the image of Jenna Lewis in his face. “Did you know?”

  “Raye…” he starts. He doesn’t seem surprised by the image, which fuels my rage. I push around him and walk up to Marcella, who is hovering near the back of the room, a nasty snarl ruining her beautiful face.

  Jenna’s face.

  “What did you do to this girl?” I flash the image in front of her eyes. When Marcella doesn’t answer, I shove her into the wall–she is lighter than I expect. “Don’t tell me this is some kind of coincidence,” I spit. A small part of my brain tells me I should be afraid, but I tell it to shut the hell up.

  I do not have time to be afraid.

  “To be fair, she had already run away by the time I found her. She was an addict and a whore and she was wasting all of this. I did the body a favour.”

  It is not until she admits it do I realize I expected her to deny it. My voice wavers. “Where is she?”

  Marcella shrugs her shoulders elegantly, shaking me off in the processes. “Does it matter? She’s gone, and I’m here now.”

  “You’re a murderer.” I take a step back. The fear part of my brain is finally starting to win. “Did you know?” I repeat, turning my eyes to T.K. His face is ghost-white and full of pain; I don’t need an answer. “You’re one of them, aren’t you?”

  “Oh, hardly,” Marcella replies. “It’s called survival, Raye. I needed a body. So I took one. Did you think our DNA was so magical we could blend in flawlessly with the species of an entirely different planet? Come now, you’re smarter than that.”

  “Marcella, stop,” T.K. pleads. I turn away from him, focusing on Marcella. Something has snapped in her. Whatever facade she put on before is finally disappearing.

  “Shut up, T.K. You’re the one who insisted on bringing her into all this.” She opens her arms wide, hands to the ceiling. “I think Raye deserves to know the truth, don’t you?”

  “Marcella, please stop,” Chane begs, her voice breaking on the last syllable.

  “It’s the memories,” Marcella continues, tapping her temple. “All in here. Every new body we take comes with a brand new set of knowledge. It was so helpful in the beginning. Some of us opted to switch hosts often to maximize all the information: old, to new, to young. Some of us, like Markus, found one they liked and clung to it like a little tick. Others, like T.K. and I, had to experiment a little bit first. Isn’t that right, brother?”

  She says it to be cruel; to force a reaction out of me. I know it, but the knowledge doesn’t stop the blood from rushing into my cheeks or the pain from squeezing at my heart. “T.K. is nothing like you.”

  Marcella laughs. “What, you never wondered how we came up with ideas for our appearances? Did you think we conjured them up, Raye, like magic, like a dream?”

  The truth is, I never asked because I did not want to know. I realize T.K.’s explanation had lies written all over it, but I hadn’t wanted to see it. I didn’t want him to be the monster. I wanted him to be the prince. His expression tells me Marcella is telling the truth.

  I spent so much time protecting myself, and yet here I am, so easily manipulated.

  I interpreted everything wrong.

  “Tsk, tsk, brother! So many lies,” Marcella chides, her smile widening with malice.

  I turn to T.K., who is watching her with a mixture of fury and agony. “Tell me something else, Raye. Did you ever ask yourself why you had two bouts of the flu in such a short span? Unusual, isn’t it?” When I don’t reply, Marcella continues, enjoying the game. “We don’t have quite as much power as the Leichen. I mean, we can’t control you like a little puppet,” she laughs, “but we can change things and add things and take things away.”

  Marcella brushes her hands along my face, her fingers tracing my temples. T.K. yells for her to stop, but he doesn’t make a move to pull her away. “Human minds are so temperamental. Too much meddling and they…break apart. Some people slip into insanity. Others become incredibly sick.” She sounds like she is speaking to a child, telling them a bedtime story.

  Her words summon a gut-wrenching realization. The flu, the mornings filled with fuzziness, the smog I felt creeping along my subconscious. They did something to my memories; to my mind.

  I turn to T.K., my movement so abrupt it manages to catch Marcella off guard. “What did you do to me?” I whisper, hitting him in the chest. The smog is still there, but it is threatening to part. Something is wrong. I knew something was wrong, didn’t I? The dreams... They weren’t warning me T.K. was different; they were warning me he wasn’t safe. Why didn’t I listen to my instincts?

  “It wasn’t me.” His voice is so low I almost can’t hear it. “I…I can’t. Not with you.”

  “He doesn’t mean that sentimentally, either,” Marcella chirps, excited. “He’s tried, and you better believe he’d be doing it right now if he could.”

  “Chane,” T.K. pleads, turning to his youngest sister.

  “T.K., I can’t.” Her eyes fill with tears. “I’m too worn out from earlier.”

  They are talking about me like I’m not here, like my memories are so worthless they can take them at will. “Marcella, please,” T.K. begs again, his voice catching.

  “No, I don’t think so, brother. I think Raye should know everything you’ve done for her. Don’t you want to hear about it, Raye?” Marcella asks, turning to face me with her twisted smile. “Actually, maybe I should give it all back.”

  “It’ll kill her!” T.K. yells, finally stepping forward. Before his foot can touch the ground, Marcella flings him backward with her mind, manipulating the energy around her like it is air.

  “Looks like you’re still worn out from earlier, too. I guess it’s just you and me, Rayray.” She runs her hand along my face again. The nickname makes me flinch, but my curiosity holds me in place, the smog itching to detach itself from my mind.

  “Do it,” I order, not taking my eyes off her angelic face.

  Without warning, Marcella shoves her fingers into my temples, forcing a scream to crawl out of my lungs. A series of images and thoughts burst into my mind, one after the other like a mutated film reel.

  ∆∆∆

  I left Lindsay’s hospital room after a draining and horrific argument with her parents. I was so jarred I needed to take a moment to collect my thoughts before I made any motion of leaving. Rather than head out in search of my Mom as my original memory lead me to believe, I had called T.K. I asked him to come pick me up. It was him I needed. He arrived minutes after I placed the call.

  We are not in the car long before the Leichen find us. One of them is in Mr. Okar’s body. T.K. burns it to the ground, leaving nothing but charred remains in its place. The other doesn’t have a body. It tries to take mine. But it can’t. Something goes wrong.

  The police arrive at the scene. I plead with T.K. to leave me to handle the mess. I’m confident my mother can talk me out of any situation. Even if she can’t, I am willing to chance taking the fall to protect T.K.

  The police find me. They order a medic to check me out before they bring me to the station. I’m sitting in one of the interrogation rooms, my clothes filthy and my head pounding. After I give my statement about Mr. Okar’s death, I’m left alone to dread the appearance of my mom. There is no way the constable bought my story about being stranded on the road after a car crash and being attacked by my old math teacher.

  I’m going to jail.

  “Miss McKenna?” Constable Davidson asks, tentatively stepping in
to the room. He doesn’t look nearly as upset as he did when he brought me in.

  “Yes?”

  “You can leave now, if you’d like.”

  “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Your mom won’t be coming in tonight, so there’s no point in you waiting around,” he replies, giving me a cautious smile. That is the smile I get sometimes from people who want my mom to like them. It is a tell your mom I’m awesome smile. It is not a you’re being arrested for murder smile.

  “You didn’t call her?” I ask, treading lightly.

  “Oh, no, did you want me to call her?” He wrings his hands nervously. He thinks he has made an error.

  “Raye? Are you ready to go?” Chane calls, popping her head in the door.

  “Chane, what are you doing here?” Her sudden appearance startles me up off the chair.

  “Well, when you said you wanted to pop in to see if your mom was working, I figured I would wait outside. It’s sort of cold, though. Can we go?” she smiles so brightly at Constable Davidson, it makes her silver hair look plain in comparison. She turns to me and makes a motion with her head. Come.

  Not knowing what else to do, I stand up slowly and make my way to the door. When Constable Davidson waves us goodbye, I yank Chane by the arm and drag her into the bathroom. “What in the hell is going on?” I demand, locking the door behind us.

  Chane appears awkward and uncomfortable. It is a stark contrast to her typically perky self. “Markus is out-of-town, T.K.’s drained, and Marcella hates you, so it was me or no one,” she says, trying to sound more confident than she is. I can tell the situation is making her anxious.

  “Chane, what did you do?”

  She twists her silver hair up into a ponytail, still uncomfortable. “When T.K. arrived home, he told us what happened. He was going to come straight here, but we don’t heal that fast. So I went by the scene of the accident, disposed of the cars, wiped the memories of the detectives at the site, and then came here and altered all the detectives’ minds here. Now I’m exhausted. Can we go, please?” She speaks so quickly I question whether I heard her correctly.

  “You what?” I don’t understand what she is talking about. She makes it sound like she can zap someone’s memory. “Chane, I was handling it!”

  “Raye, you were handling it badly,” she says, shaking her head. “They’re all going to wake up tomorrow with fuzzy heads and it’ll be like none of this even happened. Did you want to go to jail for this? You shouldn’t have even been there. I’m trying to help you.”

  Were she anyone else, I would argue. But the way Chane is looking at me makes me feel so…thankful. Her eyes are wide and her hair is ragged; she’s worried about me, and not because I’m dating her sort-of-brother. Chane cares about me independent of T.K.; she genuinely believes she is helping.

  “What about Mr. Okar? People are going to notice when he doesn’t show up to work.” The thought threatens to crush me as I watch his body burn on repeat in my head. I grab the sink for support.

  “We’ll take care of that later. Maybe the principal remembers him handing in his resignation,” she says, glancing at the door longingly.

  It occurs to me how much they are capable of. Other than a convenient way to turn off the lights, T.K. never went into detail about his abilities. I had never even thought to ask. I trusted him to tell me everything without prying. I was naive. I should have thought about it sooner, but for some reason, I...hadn’t. The idea that someone can take a memory and erase it, or create a new one without blinking an eye is terrifying.

  My mind wanders to my dreams. The dreams I used to have of T.K. I never brought them up, but maybe that was another miscalculation. What if they were trying to tell me more than I originally believed?

  “Look, Raye, I’m sorry. We all are. When T.K. met you, we were so worried something like this could happen. Now that it has… You are so lucky to be okay. We want to make it better.” She looks so genuine, her eyes worried I won’t forgive her.

  “I used to have these dreams,” I tell her, unable to stop myself now that the idea is there. “They were of T.K., but... But he wasn’t my T.K. Not the way he is now. He...” I hesitate, not sure how to properly describe the feeling the dreams instilled. Chane watches me intently, not blinking. “He looked different each time, but I’m certain it was him. I can’t explain how.”

  “What happened in the dreams?” I see something flash in Chane’s eyes. Curiosity?

  “He died. Every time. Why would I dream that, Chane?”

  Something about the way here eyes widen tells me Chane knows more than she is willing to say. I watch as her resolve strengthens. A silent decision forms.

  I ignore the unsettling sensation crawling over me, pressing forward.

  “Chane, when we were in the forest… One of them tried to...get inside me,” I say, voicing the only other thing I have been able to think about for the past two hours. “Why didn’t it work?”

  “I have a theory.” She looks at her shoes rather than my eyes. “But I don’t think it’s a good idea if I tell you.”

  “I feel like we’re past the formalities at this point. What am I missing?”

  “I’m so sorry.” She rests her palm against my face, her fingers tickling my hairline. “I don’t have a choice.”

  After Chane takes my memories of the evening, replacing them with a desire to see my mother, she cleans me up to the best of her ability and swaps our shirts so I’m no longer coated in blood and grime. She leaves me at the station all alone, my head pounding and my horrific realization gone.

  ∆∆∆

  I am aware of two worlds existing side by side: the world of the past, of memories stolen; and the world of the present, of nothing but pain. I scream out, agony ripping apart my nerves one by one. I feel T.K. wrap his arms around me, but I’m too consumed with the images filtering through my mind to shove him off.

  ∆∆∆

  I went straight to T.K.’s after my interview with Dr. Wright. I was promised a home cooked meal that soon turned into takeout. Things became heated as we waited for our food, as they tended to when we were anything close to alone.

  Markus answers the door, bringing our dinner into the kitchen. In an attempt to quell an argument between Markus and I, T.K. unintentionally reveals it was Markus and Darien who broke into my home months prior. It was their version of a background check, an attempt to uncover information about my mother and I.

  I freak out, as any sane human would. Before I know what is happening, Markus is holding me against the counter, ripping the conversation from my mind. T.K. stands in the background, watching in horror as his guardian mutilates my mind. He makes no move to help me.

  At some point, I faint. When I regain consciousness, Markus is gone and T.K. is driving me home. I feel weak and vulnerable, like my mind is a piece of clay waiting to be moulded.

  T.K. tells me he is sorry before tucking me into bed and climbing out my window, knowing I will remember nothing when I wake.

  ∆∆∆

  Before I can orient myself, my mind spins further back. It is like I am watching my life on rewind, except I was asleep for parts, missing out on monumental moments in the plot. I am almost certain my head will explode if this continues, but it’s too late to object. How much more can there possibly be? How much could they have taken?

  ∆∆∆

  It was the day of the talent show auditions. I spent the last half hour looking everywhere for Shawn, doing my best to keep Lindsay from panicking. Her day had been rough enough without the guilt of losing her brother weighing her down.

  As I turn the final corner, a harsh voice catches my attention. Under the stairs, I notice a figure pressed up against another, voice quiet but fierce. Marcella is deep in conversation with Shawn, pressed so closely to his body I almost think they are embracing. When I call to her, she lashes out, attacking me with a force I don’t think to expect from her small frame.

  “Jesus, what are you doing?” I shout,
trying to shove her off of me. She is so strong; I’m barely able to pry one of her fingers from my arm. I am up against the brick wall, trapped. I feel it pull at my skin through my clothing. I don’t have time to struggle before Marcella shoves her fingers into my temples.

  “Forget this–all of it. Take Shawn back to the gym. You found him getting stoned in the stairwell. He’s fine now.” I feel faint as I watch Marcella turn her back to me and corner Shawn, his face so pale I almost believe he is high.

  ∆∆∆

  It was the night of the homecoming dance. T.K. and I shared a moment that nearly resulted in a kiss. I panicked and ran from him as only I could do.

  I am standing outside the school, trying to find air that isn’t tainted with my own frustration. I run into Shawn and some of his friends. They corner me. I am...scared. Suddenly, T.K. is there, pulling them off me, making me feel safe and protected.

  After the attack, T.K. brings me straight home and puts me into bed. He leaves. I toss and turn for hours, unable to fall asleep. I wanted him to stay, and I hate myself for it. I’m upset about Shawn as well, which bothers me even more. When did I start letting these emotions warp me? When did I start caring about things outside my control?

  The sound of my door creeping open startles me, forcing me bolt upright out of my sheets. “Mom? I’m trying to sleep, what the hell?” I call, squinting to see her in the dark. Her outline is distorted, too long and too thin.

  “Mom?” I call again, this time unsure.

  “Hey, Raye.” Darien flicks on the lights, his hand nowhere near the switch on the wall. For a moment, I wonder if I’m dreaming. “Don’t freak out, okay?” he says in his too quiet, hesitant voice. I don’t think I’m dreaming anymore, but it is next to impossible to be afraid of Darien, even if it is late and he has come into my room uninvited.

  “Is T.K. with you?” I hate how hopeful my voice sounds.